Blogiversary | Farzana Marie Bio & Giveaway

Today, my featured author is Farzana Marie. She is another fellow member of the Women’s National Book Association – Los Angeles Chapter. I’m excited to be mixing it up a bit by featuring a poet. You can pre-order her collection of poems below.

TITLE: Load Poems Like Guns

PUBLISHER: Holy Cow Press

RELEASE DATE: April 7, 2015

GENRE: Poetry

“Load Poems Like Guns is an important book. It gives an eloquent and wrenching witness to voices from another place and another poetry: voices with a unique mix of formal power and personal pain. Eight Afghan women poets are eloquently translated here by Farzana Marie, including the tragic and luminously gifted Nadia Anjuman. This is a bilingual edition; the English and Dari are side by side, allowing us a glimpse of the mysterious and profound Persian poetic tradition. This is a book every poet and every reader of poetry should seek out. It amplifies our understanding. It broadens our sense of the identity of the poet. Above all, it makes available a rich and troubling narrative we need to hear.”–Eavan Boland, author of A Woman Without A Country (poems)

Farzana Marie is PhD candidate in Middle Eastern Literatures at the University of Arizona’s School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies. Her research focuses on Persian literature, especially Afghan women’s poetry. She also writes and translates poetry. She holds a B.S. in the Humanities from the U.S. Air Force Academy and an M.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She served as an active duty officer for over six years, including two consecutive years of deployed service in Afghanistan (2010-2012), where she previously served as a volunteer teacher in Afghanistan orphanages (2003-2004). Farzana is the President of Civil Vision International, a non-profit charitable organization focused on positively influencing international relationships through connecting, informing, educating and inspiring citizens. (Photo Credit: Eric Hervey)